THE MAN AT THE WINDOW [Sat, 4-30-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

THE MAN AT THE WINDOW [Sat, 4-30-22]

 

“You might be in danger,” the young man told me.

Helen and I don’t see many people in person, because of covid, and because we’re old and don’t go anywhere. Occasionally there is someone in our house, most recently George, the plumber. If we see folks in person elsewhere, it’s usually in a medical office. So it was with the young man at the window.

The dental hygienist likes to schedule Helen and me back to back, so that each of us has to sit in the waiting room for an hour during the other’s “procedure,” pretending to read, so that other people will leave us alone. Waiting room conversations are usually fretful. They remind you of what and how most people are thinking, or not thinking. Reading is a cocoon, but you must choose the book carefully, so that its title alone does not spark conversation. A cover like Principles of Higher Mathematics Applied to Quantum Mechanics is useful. You can put a Colson Whitehead or a Marilynne Robinson inside it.

But I’d already been in a frustrating conversation in which a woman told me that she was sorry that people were suffering in the war in Ukraine but that it was “part of God’s plan.” That was when the young man appeared in the window beside where I was sitting in the waiting room. He tapped rather insistently on the glass. I tried to ignore it, but he kept tapping, so I looked. He motioned for me come outside. I was the only man in the building. I figured somebody should get ahead of the situation. So I went outside.

He was very nice-looking. A bit of a James Dean/Johnny Depp type. Mid to late 20s. Clean shaven, trim hair, no visible tattoos, simple but clean clothes. He told me his name was Christopher. He said his last name, too, but I didn’t catch it. His voice was pleasant, but he used it to say unsettling things. At least, at first. The first thing he said was that I might be in danger. He added that he was in danger, too. But, he continued, he loved me, and if I ever needed help, he would provide it, as best he could. Then he asked if he could shake my hand.

Well, this is covid times. You should not shake hands with strangers. But he was so polite and sincere. And I’m still a preacher, at least in my sensitivities, even if not in my activities. Preachers don’t know how to say “no” to people like Christopher. So I stuck out my hand. Instead of shaking it, he took it in both of his, leaned over and kissed it lightly, looked up at me and said, “Remember that I love you,” and hurried away.

The whole time I had been waiting for him to ask me for money. I was prepared. I carry a money clip in my side pocket with only a five-dollar bill in it. Whenever I am asked for money, I pull it out. The other person does not have a chance to look at my billfold and see that I have platinum credit cards and thousand dollar bills. But he did not ask for money. He just told me that he loves me.

Yes, Christopher means “Christ-bearer.” Yes, I believe that he was Christ in a person. But the woman who said that Ukraine was part of God’s plan may have been Christ in a person, too—just harder to figure out. So with the hygienist and the receptionist and the other people in the waiting room. Anyone might be an “angel unawares.”

Yes, the most likely explanation is that he is one of Bloomington’s many homeless people, most of whom have illusions of some sort. “Shalom,” our center for the homeless, is one of the main causes we support. Maybe I’ve even paid for a meal or a shower for Christopher at some time.

But, he did not claim to be Christ. He did not ask for money. He just reminded me that I am in danger, which is always true, and said that he loves me.

Christopher may be homeless and delusional, but he’s living a better life than a lot of folks in expensive houses, who are proud that they live in the “real world.”

John Robert McFarland